The Modern Office: More than Work

Good morning! Your alarm screams at you to leave your dream world behind and get ready to head out into the real world. The real world that involves people and work.

Work. Work. Work. That’s what you do and where you spend your time, and for most people, that’s 40 hours a week.

Alright, flip the script.

Good morning! Your alarm goes off and prompts you to leave your dream world and get ready to enter your dream reality — your company that was once just a small start-up. Your dream that’s become a reality involves people and work.

Your employees should enjoy coming to work. And you should understand that an office environment can make or break your company’s recruiting process for talented team members.

The 2018 Office

Modern offices consider more than the physical needs of each employee. “The modern workplace centers around staff and their experience interacting with the space,” K2 Space furniture experts said in Office Design Trends to Watch in 2018. “It’s not just about the physical workplace anymore but more about how the space makes staff feel and what it’s like to work there.”

The K2 Space study continued to say that office spaces are often key to attracting and retaining talented employees. This is still a fairly new concept. You just don’t see bright, interesting office furniture in ‘90s sitcoms. Because it’s a new idea, you may be thinking, “Eh, I’ll let others take this theory for a test run before I just aboard.” To which we say, “You’re missing out!”

With an intentional, functional and inspiring work environment comes talented employees with the ability to spur on your company and help you be successful.

Here are just a few considerations you should contemplate when designing with office furniture that will encourage a growth mindset.

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Touchdown Spaces: These are areas of the office that are casual spaces that employees can exchange ideas and step away from their desks. It’s not a desk or a conference room. It’s a “third space,” as contract specialists refer to it.

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Collaborative Spaces: These places are designed to boost teams brainstorming power. Often, these zones include whiteboards, shareable screen technology and lots of comfortable seating.

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Open Concept Spaces: These spaces can sometimes penetrate an entire office — especially in a creative field such as a start-up or marketing office. This is a design choice that runs in the opposite direction of cubicles and white-walled, too small, no window offices.

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Breakout Zones: In the past, this type of space has been referred to as a “break room.” Archaic, no? While we may still call ‘em break rooms, we’re now talking about places where you can grab a coffee, eat lunch, chill, have actual fun and sometimes even take a nap.

Simon Millington from Incognito explained the following in Mix Magazines A-Z of trends: “Employees can’t sustain the high levels of productivity expected of them without the opportunity to spend a small portion of time zoning out, relaxing and recharging.”

These are just a few examples of the areas that use office furniture to compose a modern office, but there are other variables. Color, texture, health-based furniture designs and more all play a significant role.